I just noticed that empires I set as distant from me, and me being in the core of an elliptical galaxy, were put so far out that after about two hours still haven't expanded beyond their home systems. Their home systems are quite a way from the main cluster of systems.

I've began using the editor to add some habitable worlds to the empty star systems near them, but they are already so far behind that they may never recover.

Does that not seem RIGHT to you? Consider Earth, planet we live on. Solar system is in one of two (smaller) arms of our spiral galaxy, Milky way. If u grant it one look, you will see that star density varies greatly... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_system#Galactic_context in our 15 light years radius, there is only under 40 other Star systems, with only 2 uncofirmed planet(ary systems)... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars All in all, Sol is luckily in not too dense nor too sparse populated part of galaxy, with stable and relatively secure galactic orbit. But were it in described regions of space, any potential space faring race would have significantly harder times too establish space empire (all prerequite conditions to get lifeform so advanced w.hyperdrive are ignored - its just a game :) ) More problematic is AI unability to expand properly in favourable regions of space... I ALWAYS outcolonize AI empires, even if they they started big very soon :( Alternatively, setting your start position in far regions is good for harder game and more realistic Human game :)

There just needs to be some kind of check that ensure that region around each empire's homeworld has expansion possibilities. Tough luck if it's sparse and inhospitable but there should be something so they become part of the game instead of doing nothing.

Regardless of traits, no AI player should do what amounts to almost nothing.

Anyway in my last game it's races I've often seen in the top 4 in games with 9-12 AI empires. Dhayut, Mortalen, Quamino. The Dhayut in particular. They usually end up, in my games, as one of the biggest empires and generally are hated by almost everyone else even their fellow insectoids with the same government, heh.

Setting all the empires to "Distant" territory-starves them because they all end up in the exact same location on the map, as part of a peculiar behavior of empire distribution. This may still be happening, where setting everyone to distant, rather than merely creating an open game where you aren't surrounded by neighbors in your face, creates a game where YOU are in the center of the map and everyone ELSE is crammed into ONE CORNER of the map, rather than, say, evenly distributed around you, distantly.